European Parliament resolution on the guidelines for the 2001 budget procedure - Section III - Commission
Date: 2000-03-30
Institutions: Committee on Budgets, European Parliament
Subjects: European Commission, budgetary procedure, general budget (EU)

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Official Journal of the European Communities

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TEXTS ADOPTED

Thursday 30 March 2000

1. 2001 budgetary guidelines (cid:26) Section III

A5-0070/2000

European Parliament resolution on the guidelines for the 2001 budget procedure (cid:26) Section III (cid:26)
Commission

The European Parliament,

(cid:1) having regard to Article 272 of the EC Treaty, Article 177 of the Euratom Treaty and Article 78 of the

ECSC Treaty,

(cid:1) having regard to the Interinstitutional Agreement (IIA) of 6 May 1999 between the European Parlia-
ment, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary
procedure (1),

(cid:1) having regard to the European Parliament and Council Decision of 16 December 1999 to use the

flexibility instrument for the financing of the reconstruction of Kosovo (2),

(cid:1) having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgets and the opinions of the Committee on
Economic and Monetary Affairs, Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Committee on the
Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development
and Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities (A5-0070/2000),

A. whereas the budgetary procedure for the EU budget 2000 has shown the benefits of the Interinstitu-
tional Agreement of 6 May 1999 and its limitations, especially as regards the ceilings of the different
categories of the financial perspective,

B. whereas the amounts provided for within the ceiling for heading 4 of the financial perspective are
structurally inadequate to cope with reconstruction needs in Kosovo and needs in the western Balkans
in general,

C. whereas in the 2000 budgetary procedure the two arms of the budgetary authority came to an agree-
ment to increase the ceiling of heading 4 through the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument in
order to provide for a revised amount to secure the reconstruction of Kosovo in 2000 which does
not jeopardise the traditional policies of the Union, and whereas the Interinstitutional Agreement of
6 May 1999 has already opened the way for the revision of the financial perspective in view of
developments in the Balkan situation (Declaration on heading 4),

D. whereas the Commission,

in Declaration No 1 on the abovementioned European Parliament and
Council Decision of 16 December 1999, confirmed that it will propose by April 2000 an aid pro-
gramme for the western Balkans, including Kosovo, for the period 2000-2006, and that the amount
concerned will require it to submit a proposal for revision of the financial perspective and a program-
ming plan for heading 4; whereas in Declaration No 2 the European Parliament and the Council took
note that ‘if a sum requiring a financial effort significantly greater than that already programmed were
to be agreed, this would entail exceeding the current ceilings for heading 4 of the financial perspec-
tive’,

E. whereas the budget for 2000 takes the first steps towards reducing the existing backlog in payments,
in particular in heading 2 (Structural operations), heading 3 (especially the framework programme for
research) and heading 4 (External actions) of the financial perspective, and whereas Parliament will
insist on the continuing need to search for a definitive solution for this problem and to ensure that
a sufficient level of payments is maintained over the new programming period,

F. whereas the solution to the problems raised by the financing of European Union assistance in the
Western Balkans should not undermine the European Union’s commitment to financing other sectors
and other external action priorities of the European Parliament,

(1) OJ C 172, 18.6.1999, p. 1.
(2) OJ C 41, 14.2.2000, p. 1.

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G. whereas the forthcoming enlargement of the Union will be constantly borne in mind in the budget

procedure,

H. whereas it is undesirable for the Commission to enter into financial commitments or arouse expecta-
tions without first consulting the budgetary authority about the basis and financial cover for those
commitments; whereas the Council and Parliament should consider their dual responsibility as legisla-
tive and budgetary authorities in deciding on both annual allocation and multiannual envelopes for
codecision programmes,

I. whereas, in the procedures for the budget years 1999 and 2000, important progress was made by
Parliament in identifying and restricting the administrative expenditure entered in part B of Section III
(Commission) of the EU General Budget,

J. whereas since March 1999 it has been calling for an evaluation of the Commission’s priorities and real
needs for human resources which has not yet been provided although a commitment was made to
link this evaluation to the forthcoming reform,

K. whereas Parliament has successfully urged the Commission to present a timetable for re-organising
externalisation policy in an efficient, cost-effective and transparent way, including the definition of
the legal framework, structure and mandate of the different instruments of externalisation by mid-
April 2000,
to dismantle current Technical Assistance Offices and to present, by the end
of September 2000, the proposal on a legal framework for a new category of Community bodies,
a timetable for testing and extending the use of this new category of Community bodies, and a first
assessment in terms of staff needs,

L. whereas the Commission announced serious and profound administrative reforms from the year 2000
on, including the achievement of a better match between resources and tasks, and on 1 March 2000
presented a White Paper on Reforming the Commission containing an outline of the future ‘adminis-
trative architecture’ of the Commission,

M. whereas Activity Based Budgeting (ABB) as part of Activity Based Management (ABM) has to play an
important role in the framework of the administrative reform inaugurated by the Commission,

N. whereas Parliament intends, subject to the Council’s meeting its obligations, to follow the Interinstitu-
tional Agreement, in particular to improve cooperation between the institutions on budgetary matters,
and asks the Council and Commission to act likewise,

O. whereas the Council and the Commission need to take account of the objectives set out in Parlia-
ment’s budget guidelines in a spirit of constructive cooperation with a view to the drafting of the
Preliminary Draft Budget and the Draft Budget,

Political priorities

1.
Stresses the need in time to find appropriate funding to finance policies newly introduced or rein-
forced by the Amsterdam Treaty, in both internal and external actions; and underlines its objective to
strengthen the social and cultural dimension of Europe through the first budget of the new millennium
and to set priorities in the field of employment policy by using all the instruments at its disposal; to
support measures to develop the cultural industry; and to promote the broad participation of all social
sectors and regions in the information society and the principle of equal opportunities in accordance
with Article 13 of the EC Treaty;

2.
Underlines its consistent priority to support employment policy, job-creation and the dissemination
of the new technologies in particular through micro-enterprises and SMEs, irrespective of the legal form
they take; stresses that measures in favour of employment should be targeted at these enterprises and at
the information technology sector, taking into account the results of the Lisbon Summit;

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3.
Underlines the need to provide a sustainable and multiannual contribution to the financial assistance
for the reconstruction of Kosovo and the stabilisation of the Balkan region in order to improve the huma-
nitarian situation and to create the conditions for closer relations between the people and the countries of
this region and the European Union; draws attention to the undertaking to this effect given by the Council
in its declaration of 16 December 1999; recalls, in accordance with paragraph 20 of the Interinstitutional
Agreement, the need to decide on a revision of the financial perspective before the start of the budgetary
procedure, and before the Council’s first reading at the latest;

Stresses the need to launch, before the end of 2000, the reform of the administrative system of the
4.
European Union in order to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness, accountability and transparency, recal-
ling that the image of Europe, in the eyes of certain sectors of the public, is linked to the success of this
reform; recalls its request in the context of the 2000 Budget for an assessment of staff needs, now expected
to be published in September; requests that the Commission include in this report what the staff require-
ments are to maintain core activities and run existing programmes, as well as estimates for additional staff
to underpin new activities;

Administrative reform

5. Welcomes the Commission’s announcements on administrative reform, and notes the presentation of
the White Paper, ‘Reforming the Commission’, to be considered by Parliament; expects the Commission to
follow the letter and spirit of the undertakings given during the 2000 budget procedure; points out that a
consensual climate between the institutions in the budgetary procedure will improve the chances for an
efficient implementation of the reform package;

6.
Emphasises that the political guidance and supervision of the European administration are core
responsibilities of the European Parliament in order to guarantee an efficient use of taxpayers’ money,
and recalls that the EC Treaty (Article 274) confers on the Commission responsibility for implementing
the budget and on Parliament powers of control over such implementation;

7.
Insists that the Commission follow the timetable for reorganising externalisation policy and stresses
that it will not accept any departure from this timetable or any further delay in the reorganisation; points
out that the success of the 2001 budget procedure will be heavily dependent on adherence to the commit-
ment referred to in paragraph 5 above, which was made in the letter of 24 November 1999 from Com-
mission Vice-President Kinnock, and Commissioner Schreyer;

Evolution of budgetary structure

8.
Points out that the structure of the EU budget has to be clear, transparent and easy for the public to
understand to reflect the political objectives of the European Union and to facilitate supervision of the
implementation of the policy measures; the budget document itself must be the practical expression of
European Union policy;

9. Welcomes the efforts of the Commission to present the PDB in parallel in the form of an Activity-
Based Budget (ABB), and underlines that the objectives of the ABB must be:

(cid:1) to improve administrative performance, transparency and the level of evaluation, and thus to enhance

its scope for exerting more clearly-targeted and stronger political guidance,

(cid:1) to foster sound management, efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the administration and to reinforce

flexibility of the management of Community actions by the Commission;

Asks the Commission to ensure that Parliament’s horizontal priorities such as mainstreaming of

10.
green and gender issues are duly taken into account and highlighted;

11.
Stresses that the objectives of Activity Based Budgeting are beneficial for all forms of European
Union expenditure and, therefore, the ABB exercise should be applied to all EU expenditure, including
the European Development Fund (EDF);

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12.
Points out that the administrative reform and the introduction of the ABB must not prevent the
budgetary authority from exerting its powers over the allocation of the resources it considers necessary to
implement EU policies, and must prevent the Commission from binding the implementation of new pol-
itical priorities to extra human resources or administrative expenditure;

13.
Considers it essential, under the new financial framework for the period 2000-2006, that the bud-
getary authority exercise closer control of the financial statements in new legislative initiatives; urges the
Council and Commission to agree with Parliament on a mechanism for implementing better monitoring of
new proposals;

14. Welcomes current Commission thinking as regards adding a detailed breakdown of EDF appropria-
tions in an annex, as an important first step towards its integration in the budget; such a step will only be
useful if the information includes performance targets to enable the budgetary authority to monitor the
efficiency of implementation;

Implementation of the budget

15.
Underlines the significance of the implementation of the budgets of the previous years for the es-
tablishment of the 2001 budget, emphasises the need to strengthen instruments for monitoring not only
the quantitative, but in particular the qualitative aspects of the implementation of expenditure, and instructs
its committees to continue their efforts concerning the monitoring of budget expenditure, and to develop
further their close cooperation; also instructs its committees to examine quarterly the implementation of
the budget on the basis of detailed reports from the Commission;

Stresses the need to establish, in cooperation with the Council and Commission, a procedure linking

16.
the implementation of the current budget to the establishment of the budget for the following year;

17.
Notes the ongoing work in the context of the 1998 discharge for Section III (Commission budget);
considers that the conclusions from this exercise may need to be reflected in the decisions taken in the
2001 budget for the Commission;

18.
Points out that there should be a detection and evaluation procedure for identifying non-compliance
with the conditions of implementation established in the budget; and stresses that a procedure should be
established to freeze the execution of budget lines if those conditions are not met;

19.
Calls on the Commission to present by 31 May 2000 the proposal for the revision of the Financial
Regulation; expects that the proposal will reflect the recommendations made by Parliament and the
changes proposed by the Commission in the administrative, financial and budgetary fields; calls upon the
Council to guarantee that no changes will be made to the Financial Regulation without Parliament’s agree-
ment, thus respecting the principle of codecision which is practised in the budgetary field, and asks the
Council to speed up the procedure for adoption as much as possible;

Specific problems

Pilot Projects and Preparatory Actions

20.
Expects the Commission to give a positive follow-up to the pilot projects and preparatory actions
entered in the Budget 2000 by 30 April 2000 and to those entered in future budgets; draws attention in
this connection to paragraph 37 of the Interinstitutional Agreement; points out that those budget lines
serve as a testbed for European integration and must therefore give rise to a thorough assessment and
circulation of the best results with a view to the development of new programmes or measures; undertakes
therefore to monitor extremely closely, with the help of its specialised committees, the work carried out by
the Commission in this area so as to ensure that public funds are used in an effective manner;

Classification

21.
Reiterates its position that expenditure resulting from international agreements, including interna-
tional fisheries agreements, which the European Union or the European Community has concluded with
non-member countries, has to be classified as compulsory only after the conclusion of the said agreements,
according to Annex IV of the Interinstitutional Agreement; calls on the Commission to present these
appropriations in separate budget lines;

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Natural disasters

Requests the Commission to pay special attention to structural problems of an economic or social

22.
character caused by natural disasters and to look favourably on measures to help solve these problems;

Thursday 30 March 2000

Heading 1

Considers it undesirable that heading 1 of the financial perspectives should be used as a primary

23.
financial source for financial needs in the field of external policy;

Differentiated appropriations

Asks the Commission to present in the framework of the revision of the Financial Regulation

24.
a proposal to bring the appropriations in sub-heading 1 b under differentiated appropriations;

Ancillary expenditure

Criticises the Commission’s practice in Supplementary and Amending Budgets Nos 4 and 5/99 of
25.
decreasing those budget lines in Title B1-3 (‘Ancillary expenditure’) which were Parliament’s priorities in
the 1999 budget procedure, and urges the Commission to make an effort to implement Parliament’s prio-
rities even when they involve compulsory expenditure;

26.
Calls on the Commission, in view of the importance of fisheries, including small-scale fisheries, for
preserving jobs and the economy in those outlying regions of the EU which are heavily fisheries-depen-
dent, to include among its priorities not only resource conservation but also the consolidation and exten-
sion of international fisheries agreements and the improvement of working conditions and safety standards
in the sector;

Heading 2

Management and Implementation

27.
Underlines the need for in-depth analysis of the management of the Structural Funds, in particular
concerning the externalisation of financing decisions; urges the Commission and the Member States
urgently to review the decision-making procedures in order to avoid a slow start in the implementation
of the new funds in 2000, which would inevitably begin to store up problems for the 2001 budget and for
future budgets;

Backlog

28.
Underlines the need in 2001, already the second year of the new programming period 2000-2006,
finally to use up the very large accumulated backlog of appropriations (‘reste à liquider’) still available under
the previous programming period 1993-1999, while respecting the principles of sound budgeting; urges
the Commission to begin taking the necessary action to achieve a significant reduction in the payment
period for committed appropriations;

Cultural industry

29.
Requests the Commission to continue, pursuant to Article 158 of the EC Treaty, to develop its
efforts to support the cultural industry in the framework of the structural operations, in view of the role
played by culture in reinforcing economic and social cohesion and given that culture is a major job crea-
tor, is increasingly a decisive factor in the location of new investment, and plays a highly positive role in
social integration; stresses that the audiovisual industry (cinema, radio, television), the publishing industry
(books and the press), the architectural, artistic, historical and archaeological heritage, and the work of
creators in every sphere of the arts should, therefore, be paid particular attention by the Commission;

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Heading 3

Employment initiative

30.
Stresses the need to ensure the continuity of significant funding for employment, complementing
actions financed by the Structural Funds in this field; asks the Commission to submit to Parliament, before
its first reading of the 2001 budget, a qualitative evaluation of the employment initiative launched in 1998
demonstrating its impact on job creation; calls on the Commission to concentrate further initiatives on
measures to ensure greater integration of micro-enterprises and SMEs into the Information Society in
order to strengthen their competitiveness in an international environment;

Trans-European Networks

31.
States that TENs are of particular strategic importance to future growth and to integration between
different parts of Europe; urges the incorporation of modern Information Technology Highways and net-
works within the TENs programme in order to give Europe the best IT infrastructure in the world;

Agencies

32.
Considers that the year 2001 should consolidate the progress made in the previous years in terms
of information and transparency, and recommends that positive and negative priorities should be set in
order to optimise the subsidy granted from the Union budget;

Social dialogue

33.
Stresses that the dialogue between representatives of the two sides of industry has an important role
to play in European integration, as the inclusion in the Treaty of a basis for it shows; acknowledges the
growing demands on employee organisations due to the process of internationalisation and globalisation
of economic relations; considers therefore that the vital work of European associations of employee and
employer organisations should continue to receive support from the European budget and calls on the
Commission to make appropriate provision for this in the Preliminary Draft Budget;

Information policy

34.
Considers that efforts should be maintained to bring European citizens closer to the Union; to this
end asks the Commission to present an action plan of the centralised and decentralised measures it intends
to take under the new administrative structure which emerges from the reform, where possible on an
interinstitutional basis, and stresses that the new structure has to be transparent, closer to the citizens
and guarantee the coherence of the information policy of the Union’s various institutions;

New policies after Amsterdam

35.
Underlines the importance of appropriate funding for the areas newly introduced or reinforced by
the Amsterdam Treaty concerning internal policies such as combating discrimination, social exclusion,
racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism; promoting economic and social cohesion; migration and asylum
policy and other new common policies in the field of justice and internal affairs; education; employment
policy including SMEs; environment policy, public health, consumer protection and food safety; develop-
ment of island regions; specific measures for peripheral regions; statistics, and the setting up of the office
of the European Data Protection Supervisor;

Natural disasters

Stresses the need to re-establish line B4-3400 (urgent aid for natural disasters within the European

36.
Union) so that urgent needs can be addressed immediately, fully respecting the principle of subsidiarity;

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Justice and Internal Affairs

Underscores the strategic importance of the justice and home affairs sector following the entry into

37.
force of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere Summit conclusions, and in this context:

(cid:1) stresses the need to give the European Refugee Fund a permanent legal basis and appropriate budget
resources in order to ensure genuine burden-sharing among the Member States of the European
Union,

(cid:1) proposes that a new migration flow control instrument be created by instituting a development part-

nership with countries of origin and transit countries,

(cid:1) calls on the Commission to earmark the operational and administrative resources needed to introduce

the scoreboard adopted at Tampere, in particular Eurojust and the European Police College,

(cid:1) presses for the necessary bolstering of the measures intended to prevent and combat all forms of

discrimination as part of the process of implementing Article 13 of the EC Treaty;

Heading 4

Financial framework

Expects that the Commission, when presenting the proposal for the revision of heading 4 of the
38.
financial perspective, will duly take into account all the events which have occurred recently relating to the
external policy of the Union, and which neither the Council nor Parliament was able to take into account
when they agreed in May 1999 on heading 4 of the financial perspective; expects that at the forthcoming
donor conference on the multiannual programme for the Western Balkans the Commission will not enter
into financial commitments or arouse expectations without first consulting the budgetary authority about
the basis and financial cover for those commitments;

Small-scale projects

Calls on the Commission to simplify and decentralise procedures for small-scale projects, such as

39.
human rights and democratisation projects, which offer high value for little money;

Civil crisis management

Requests the Commission, with a view to the plan for the presentation of a new mechanism for
40.
civil crisis management, to accompany the Preliminary Draft Budget with a communication on the estab-
lishment of a ‘Rapid Reaction Facility’ in favour of third countries;

Western Balkans

41.
Requests the Commission to adjust the nomenclature of the budget, as regards the financing of
European Union assistance to the Western Balkans, in order to include in a single chapter (B7-54) all the
appropriations related to the financial assistance to this region, including macroeconomic assistance and
transfrontier cooperation;

Common foreign and security policy

42.
Notes the trend, in recent years, towards a significant increase in the expenditure related to the
common foreign and security policy, and reiterates its determination to ensure that this trend is duly
monitored by both arms of the budgetary authority; indicates its intention to examine existing initiatives
and, where appropriate, to extend and expand such initiatives where it could be shown that this would be
in the European interest; calls on the Commission to provide the budgetary authority and the Court of
Auditors with detailed information on the use of appropriations for specific CFSP actions recalling the
Council’s obligation to forward to Parliament the financial statement related to each decision adopted in
the field of CFSP and the Commission’s obligation to inform the budgetary authority about its implemen-
tation and financial forecasts;

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TACIS

43.
Recalls that the appropriations to be entered in the PDB 2001 for the TACIS programme must be
accompanied by clear information giving the estimated breakdown by sectors and beneficiary countries,
welcomes the Council’s decision to re-focus the Tacis 2000 programme on core areas directly promoting
democratic values in Russia, and to transfer uncommitted balances to humanitarian assistance and the
promotion of networking in civil society; requests the Commission,
in the Preliminary Draft Budget,
to enter the appropriations related to Russia in the reserve (B0-40), as long as a clear identification of
the programmes and projects to be financed is not available and their respect of the principles and guide-
lines decided by Parliament and the Council, as regards the Chechnya conflict, has not been achieved;

Poverty eradication and social development

44.
States its determination that the budget should reflect the importance of internationally agreed
objectives of poverty eradication, paying particular attention to the Least Developed Countries (LLDCs),
and accepts the need for a greater focus on social development (health, gender, etc.); suggests that the
way the budget is presented should make it possible to assess the EU’s performance in meeting interna-
tional targets;

Heading 5

OLAF

45.
Recalls that the new antifraud office (OLAF) has been provided with significant administrative and
staffing resources by the budgetary authority in the years 1999 and 2000 and, while confirming the target
of 300 posts, asks the Commission to indicate the level of occupancy of the new posts created in 1999
and 2000;

Administrative reform

46.
Draws the attention of all the institutions and in particular the Commission to the evaluation of the
needs attached to the administrative reform, to the limits of heading 5 and to the necessity for planning
their establishment plans over the whole period covered by the financial perspective, and asks the institu-
tions to transmit information on their planning to the budgetary authority;

Subsidies for European organisations

47.
Acknowledges that progress has been made in recent years in enhancing transparency in the man-
agement of subsidies for European organisations (Chapter A-30); considers it necessary, however, given
that those subsidies have a great impact on citizens, to ensure that they are cost-effective by avoiding
duplication; will review thoroughly the annual reports for 1999 before taking its formal decision for the
2001 budget;

Pensions

48.
Requests the Commission to start making provisions in the preliminary draft budget for the year
2001 for a pension fund and to use for that purpose the nomenclature already used in the budget; requests
the Commission to specify, in its preliminary draft budget and within the framework of Activity Based
Budgeting, the estimated payments for pensions to all retired staff of the institutions for the years 2001
to 2010;

Heading 6

Reserve for guarantees

49.
Expresses concern about the future capacity of this reserve to finance all requirements for EU lend-
ing interventions, and suggests that the priorities of the EU in terms of future loan interventions should be
discussed jointly by the budgetary authority and the Commission in order to ensure a degree of advance

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planning of needs; expects the Commission to update the financial information on loans and guarantees
contained in its working documents in time for second reading so that the latest information can be
included in the published budget;

Thursday 30 March 2000

Heading 7

Cyprus and Malta

Reiterates its determination to enter all appropriations for the benefit of the accession candidate
including those appropriations relating to the pre-accession strategy for Malta and Cyprus,

50.
countries,
under heading 7 of the financial perspective (title B7-0);

Implementation

Emphasises the need to monitor closely the implementation of the three actions PHARE, SAPARD

51.
and ISPA against the background of the accession negotiations currently in progress;

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Court of Audi-

52.
tors, the European Investment Bank and the Union’s satellite agencies.

*

*

*

2. 2001 budgetary guidelines (cid:26) other sections

A5-0068/2000

European Parliament resolution on the guidelines for the 2001 budget procedure: Section I (cid:26)
European Parliament; Section II (cid:26) Council; Section IV (cid:26) Court of Justice; Section V (cid:26) Court of
Auditors; Section VI (cid:26) Economic and Social Committee; Section VII (cid:26) Committee of the Regions;
Section VIII (cid:26) Ombudsman

The European Parliament,

(cid:1) having regard to the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000 (1),

(cid:1) having regard to the Court of Auditors’ Annual report concerning the financial year 1998, together

with the institutions’ replies (2),

(cid:1) having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgets and the opinion of the Committee on Peti-

tions (A5-0068/2000),

A. whereas the ceiling of heading 5 in the 2001 budget is € 4 776 000 000 (3),

All institutions

Points out that the policy of budgetary rigour will also apply in the 2001 budget and that setting
1.
priorities amongst the needs of the various institutions continues to be extremely important, to avoid the
ceiling of heading 5 expenditure being reached; emphasises that every request for additional expenditure
has to be duly justified, and may, in principle, be granted only for new tasks, and, in respect of requests for
new staff, only where redeployment is not possible;

(1) OJ L 40, 14.2.2000.
(2) OJ C 349, 3.12.1999, p. 1.
(3) To which an amount of about € 163 million has to be added, being the amount of the staff contributions to the
pension scheme of the officials of the Community. See footnote 2 to Annex I of the Interinstitutional Agreement of
6 May 1999 (OJ C 172, 18.6.1999, p. 1) and COM(2000) 93 final, for the technical adjustments.